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Talk:King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
The Incomplete Sentence In one part of the game, you must present the Dangling Participle with the incomplete sentence "Where are You Going". This is not considered incomplete in all societies. "Where are You Going To" is more proper, but not necessary anymore in some societies, including the United States. One thing is that it might have seemed more "proper and regal" to have it be "To where are you going". It just seems odd that they would use such a commonly used, though grammatically incomplete sentence in and act as if it needs an ending. The ending is optional. 67.188.172.165 01:37, 28 July 2006 (EDT) Its slang to just say "Where are you going". Slang while commonly used is still not considered "proper", and therefore considered "incomplete". But your average person isn't going to care too much on the issue, that's more to the realm of the grammar police.Baggins 01:43, 28 July 2006 (EDT) Don't forget that the one who actually completed the sentence in the game was the Dangling Participle, who speaks in a manner befitting his name. The completed sentence may very well have been "To where are you going," yet the Dangling Participle reworded the sentence to the preposition-ended "Where are you going to" in order to fit his own peculiar speech pattern. "Where are you going" is incontrovertibly "proper English." See, for instance, Judges 19:17, KJV: "Whither goest thou? and whence comest thou?" See also Joyce Carol Oates's short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" In both cases, where and whither function as adverbs, not nouns, so there's no need for prepositions. The American Heritage Dictionary even states explicitly that "the to is generally superfluous" when where is used in this way. You can see why considering the inverse: "I am going there," not "I am going to there." To there is reminiscent of the (to my ears) jarring solecism where are you at. The preposition is entirely unnecessary, though at least where are you at is fairly common from speakers of a certain class or education. "Where are you going to," on the other hand, is abnormal however you look at it. 17:19, October 2, 2013 (UTC) :Actually in your examples they add Capitalization and punctuation, or are part of a longer sentence, which most would say is needed to have a complete sentence. Even if you type "where are you going" into a word processor it will set off the incomplete sentence grammar markings because it lacks punctuation and it will auto capitalize the first letter. The ingame text does have capitalization and puncuation as well, "Where are you going...?". But the elipsis ( "...") '''is used between the sentence and the '?',' and generaly means there is an '''intentional 'omission' '''of a word, or section of the original sentence. Thus the sentence is incomplete as someone '''omitted a section of the original sentence'.The omited portion could easily have been "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", but in this case 'to' was the word that DP chose to use. :As far as sentence "Where are you going to?", This blog offers an interesting disusscion about this similar topic. With different people offering different views. :http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4618/is-where-are-you-going-to-correct :Other things to consider is that inventory item is shown to "WHERE:" written in block capital letters, and doesn't show much else. Alexander's reading of the sentence corrects it into first letter capitalized and rest lower case. The colon is not indicated, and he shows the eplipsis indicating a missing section of the sentence, and the punctuation '?' at the end. :Baggins (talk) 09:44, October 11, 2013 (UTC) :::By the first measure, "where are you going to" is equally incomplete, since a word processor would flag it as a fragment for being uncapitalized and unpuncutated. Oates's title offers no support, either, because it's composed of two independent clauses. :::As for the third point, I have no quarrel with the sentence's incompleteness per se. My issue is the implication that the ellipsis represents grammatical incompleteness. Dangling Participle finishes the sentence by appending a function word rather than actual information. The implication is that a preposition is what the sentence needed in order to be complete grammatically, and that's balderdash. :::I suppose the reason I care about all this is that Jane Jensen's storytelling is generally so superb that it was disappointing to come across such an awkward blunder in the writing. With the rest being as good as it is, though, I'd put up with a lot worse. ::: 21:31, October 11, 2013 (UTC) ::Maybe the joke wasn't intended to be about 'completing' the sentence per se but more to do with the name sake of the character you give it to. A "Dangling Participle" but even then the joke isn't entirely accurate, since appending 'to' to the sentence doesn't make it a dangling participle. Most of D.P. speech isn't truly examples of dangling participles, but that's another discussion I suppose. ::Also consider that most of Dangling Participles discussion is 'yoda like' (with parts of sentence in a kind of 'backwards' order). "Know it I DO!! Where are you going TO!!!!" The first sentence should be "I do know it", so shouldn't the correct order of his comment actually be something like "To where are you going?". Sure Alexander asks him to 'finish the sentence'. But based on the way D.P. speaks, would he actually be the one who could properly finish someone else's sentence, at least not without incorporating his own speech impediment into it somehow? ::More discussion here (unrelated to KQ, but "Where are you going to?", and "To where are you going" are discussed); ::http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t14020.htm ::Maybe someone should ask Jane Jensen what the heck was intended by the whole situation.Baggins (talk) 02:40, October 14, 2013 (UTC) KQ5 and KQ6 dead ends :"Incidentally, unlike King's Quest V, each of the item's purpose is (or can be) established before acquiring it." This isn't entirely accurate. Many of the items in KQ6 you are not told the purpose before you get them (and you must figure it out for yourself), for example, the red scarf, the skeleton key, the nightengale, the brick, the copper coins, and the dagger. You might get a few hints after you already acquired them perhaps (for example Cassima asks you for a weapon of some kind). In some cases, for example, you don't even know you need to have the nightengale with you if you enter the castle via the short path, and won't learn that the guards are interested in the nightengale until you are already in (stuck in a dead end). The fact that several items are tied to the Winged Ones warning, and they only give one one warning, is enough that a player could end up in the catacombs without all the required items, and there isn't anything specifically telling the player the 'total number' of items needed to enter safely (so while the use of the tinderbox or hole-in-the-wall is obvious, the player may not necessarily know they need them to pass through the catacombs safely). Obviously other items like any mentioned in the spell book, that can be missed/destroyed, the claim is correct, that you can learn the purpose before acquiring the item (as its all 'spelled' out for you in the book, pardon the pun). Even the dress's purpose isn't necessarily known (the fact that you might have seen cleaning girls entering the castle, isn't exactly a specific clue, that you can do the same thing). In contrast, KQ5, about half of the items that can cause 'dead-ends' do have clues within the context of the game, either hinting that its something you need to pick up, and will need in the future. Although the exact purpose isn't always gleaned before acquiring them. The gold coin or gold needle's purpose is certainly known before acquiring it, as it is needed to give to the gypsies that ask for gold specifically. Likewise the tailor lets you know that you need to pay gold to buy the cloak (so again the coin or needle is needed to buy it). So really the only way this will turn out as a dead end is if the player somehow forgets to pick up the gold coin, and doesn't have enough 'gold' to give to one or the other. While you can turn the temple into a dead end, the purpose of the staff to open it is known long before you acquire the staff! The purpose of the bottle can be gleaned shortly after acquiring it, if a player tries to open it himself! You are warned before entering the woods by several things (including Cedric, a sign, and others) about the witch, getting 'lost', and other dangers (much in the veign of the single warning given by the Winged Ones in KQ6). The first screen of the forest serves as a kind of additional warning, and a chance to turn back, if the player takes heed of the number of toads hopping about (in context with information given by other characters about the witch). You are (or can be) given the hint that you need something to help the old man to hear, before you even head out to sea, to go to harpy island (a clue for the conch shell). It's obvious that you need to save the ants and the rat (and the stick and shoe both will work alternatively on both). Yes, while you are only given one chance for the rat, the game makes it obvious that you have to do something (even warning you that the cat is chasing after the rat). The event only shows up if you have the shoe or stick in your inventory. Once you do save the rat, the rat hints that she'll help you out later for something else! If you are one of those visually astute players you might have noticed both the rat hole and the lock during the death scene in inn, these are both visual clues to the means of escape (and the need for more items/solutions), although the game may not tell you their exact purpose, and the exact means of escape. Also by the time you do get locked down their the game is pretty good at telling you, that things are needed for escape. Without the rat, it points out the rope. With the rat but without the hammer it points out the lock. Since most of that sequence I scripted their is little chance that a player would 'save' themselves into the dead end. The rattlesnake actually serves as a warning, preventing you from leaving Serenia, until you have most the items needed to move on. The tamborine does not appear until after you have completed most of the puzzles in Serenia and surrounding areas. Although you aren't told what the purpose of the tambourine is exactly, since it is one of the last things you acquire, so making it the last thing to try on the snake, and if you know that snakes can be startled by shiny movement/sound, then its not completely without context. The game does do a pretty good job of warning you, before you move too far into the mountains through other means as well (such as 'getting too cold', or 'getting too hungry'), needing a rope, and needing the sled to get down the hill (this final bit represents no return). So suppose the player somehow forgot to get the cloak, the leg of lamb, or the rope before heading into the mountains, the game will 'give you a warning/purpose of use' before 'acquiring those items'. If the player tries to go down the hill without the sled, the fact that you can't move on any further (you will die at the bottom of the hill without the sled) is an additional clue that sled is important (even if you hadn't learned that from the conversation by toymaker). These aren't dead ends however, since you can make your way back to Serenia to acquire those items if needed. The purpose of the lamb leg, can be gleaned after acquiring it, i.e. the game warns that you are hungry, as you enter the mountains, and the eagle tells you that he is hungry. The purpose of the amulet is given at the moment you acquire it, as the gypsy tells you it is needed to protect against magic, and other characters tell you about the witch and her curses. Put two and two together. The purpose of the spell book is self explanatory. The purpose of the emeralds becomes clear once you figure out how to use them in the forest (but its up to the player to figure out combine it with the honey). Saving Cedric should make sense, even if you don't know he will save your life later on. The purpose of the locket, is pretty much self explanatory (if you open it to get the clue to the picture inside), but much more so when you meet/initially try to talk to Cassima. The purpose of the rope is pretty self-explanatory (though the game offers one-possible dangerous alternative use). The purpose of other items that can lead to dead ends such as the crystal, the fish hook, the pie, the second fish, and the cheese are not readily known. But its obvious that they need to be picked up (either through flashing on screen or descriptive context). But its easy to destroy some of these, such as 'eating the pie' (this can apply to the lamb leg as well) long before you might have any idea of its purpose or chance to use it. There is a mouse that enters the hole, to give you a hint to look in the hole. You are given a closeup of the cheese, and if you try to get the cheese it tells you need something to reach it, since your fingers are not long enough. This is the clue to use the hook (if you have it with you). Though there are no clues as what purpose the cheese is for (other than it really is one of the last items that hasn't been used yet, by the time you need to use it), even then there doesn't seem to be any logic behind it.Baggins 14:41, July 7, 2011 (UTC) :BTW, I'm not sure if its possible, because it may be tied to the tamborine/snake lock, but another possible dead end, would be being captured by Icebella, but missing the harp. I do know that everything needed to get the harp, is not related to a dead end though (you can reenter the forest and escape as much as you want to get needed items, after you escape from the forest initially). I think the tamborine appears after you get the harp anyways.Baggins 15:51, July 7, 2011 (UTC)